NGO hands over project to Mangochi communities

Malawi Red Cross Society (MRCS) last week handed over a community resilience project (Comrep) it has run  for the past four years in Traditional Authority (T/A) Chowe and Sub-T/A Chiunda in Mangochi.

The organisation has since asked communities to sustain the interventions.

In an interview during the close-out meeting, Mangochi district MRCS coordinator Francis Liyati-Phiri expressed happiness that the project has achieved its objectives.

“For the past four years, the project has improved people’s lives through businesses, village savings and loans, livestock-pass-on initiatives, afforestation drives and construction of safe structures as one way of building communities’ resilience to shocks of poverty and climate change,” he said.

Liyati-Phiri said they drilled 17 boreholes, rehabilitated 21 others, constructed a health post, among others.

Kwisimba Village Development Committee chairperson Cassim Majinga assured MRCS that they have viable tools that will help them sustain the project.

“We will urge communities to work hard to ensure the  sustainability of the interventions,” he said.  

In his remarks, Mangochi district agricultural development officer Owen Kumwenda commended MRCS for changing communities’ lives, saying this is how non-governmental organisations (NGO) ought to work.

The project was funded by a consortium of four national societies—Danish, Finnish, Icelandic and Italian Red Cross Societies.